A life stained by stigma, now rich in love

Deni Daviau, left, and husband Bradford McIntyre stand with their marriage certificate in their home. They are a serodiscordant couple; McIntyre is HIV-positive, and Daviau is not.: with videoArlen Redekop
/ Province

Dr. Julio Montaner, poses with Joe Average art at St. Paul's in Vancouver, B.C., October 2, 2012Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

Jane McCall (L) and Agnes Stann with view of the West End in Vancouver, B.C., October 2, 2012.Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

At first blush, Bradford McIntyre and Deni Daviau appear to have an ordinary love story.

The Vancouver couple met online, dated for a year, were married in church and have been happily married for 11 years.

A run of the mill love story, except for one thing. McIntyre and Daviau are a mixed couple: McIntyre is HIV-positive; Daviau, HIV-negative.

“We are a serodiscordant couple, we are a lot of things, but the number one thing is we are in love,” said an exuberant McIntyre in their West End home. “We are more in love today than we have ever been in love.”

McIntyre was diagnosed with HIV in 1984, at age 33. He contracted the virus from the first person he was intimate with after getting out of a 10-year relationship.

His prognosis was bleak: his doctor told him to go home, inform his family, arrange his finances and his funeral because he had six months to live.

He had two relationships fall apart. Both partners told him they did not want to watch him die, recalled McIntyre.

“Due to the stigma associated with HIV, people usually ran as fast as they could when I told them I was HIV positive,” said McIntyre. “You could say it had a negative effect on having a relationship,” he added wryly.

McIntyre wouldn’t be alive — much less have a love life — had it not been for the groundbreaking research and treatment developed at St. Paul’s Hospital.

Today, the tanned, handsome McIntyre looks fit and healthy, one of 13,000 people known to be living with HIV in B.C.

McIntyre wasn’t sick immediately after his diagnosis. He began taking medication to keep the cunning virus at bay, but the pills had brutal side effects including neuropathy, headaches, fatigue, and lipodystrophy, facial wasting that made him look gaunt and dying.

In 1997, McIntyre developed PCP, or pneumocystis pneumonia, a life-threatening lung infection that typically assails people with HIV. “I was dying,” said McIntyre. “I was not able to tolerate the treatment for the pneumonia.”

He was put on a new drug regimen, a combination therapy pioneered at St. Paul’s Hospital, in the hopes it will eradicate enough of the virus to let his ravaged immune system fight off the opportunistic infection.

Within four weeks, McIntyre’s white blood cell counts started to rise. He eventually recovered, got out of hospital and went on to live his life.

"They all died"

It wasn’t always that way.

Jane McCall, who used to work in St. Paul’s emergency remembers admitting the first person known to have HIV in the province, a 30-year-old man named Brian.

“He died,” she said. “Because they all died.”

After Brian, scores more young men began coming to St. Paul’s — sick, symptomatic, suffering from PCP and sarcomas and infections.

“They were often blind, having lost their sight,” said McCall. “They had horrible diarrhea. They looked like concentration camp victims. They’d weigh 50 kilograms. It was awful.”

Many of the patients worked at St. Paul’s and knew the grim outcome. Some committed suicide, said McCall.

The West End hospital became synonymous with HIV/AIDS care in Vancouver — by virtue of its location in the epicentre of Vancouver’s gay community, but also because the nuns, guided by its mission of compassionate care, insisted the hospital’s doors be thrown wide open at a time when other hospitals turned patients away.

At the time, HIV/AIDS was a death sentence, an illness shrouded in fear and misconception. Care was nothing more than palliative, monitoring patients during their decline towards death.

Triple Drug Cocktail life-saver

But in 1996, a new triple drug cocktail, known as highly active antiretroviral therapy, changed the game.

“When we introduced HAART, the death rate decreased markedly and life expectancy improved markedly,” said Dr. Julio Montaner, director of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS who helped pioneer the drug cocktail.

HAART suppressed HIV to undetectable levels, stopped its progression into full-blown AIDS, and turned the killer disease into a chronic condition.

“After years of people coming here and dying routinely, we couldn’t believe it,” said McCall. “It was a miracle, plain and simple.”

Montaner and St. Paul’s campaigned for the expansion of HAART, offering it to patients earlier in treatment instead of waiting until they show symptoms. It resulted in a 90 per cent decrease in the mortality rate, and 80 per cent decrease in the number of AIDS cases.

HAART also had an unexpected benefit: It suppressed the virus to a degree it reduced transmission by a whopping 96 per cent. Recent studies have indicated it is closer to 100 per cent. “It’s better than a vaccine,” said Montaner.

Today HAART is the gold standard in HIV treatment. Its early use with a goal of decreasing transmission, dubbed Treatment as Prevention, has been embraced by former U.S. president Bill Clinton, the World Health Organization and countries like China and Swaziland, which are battling the spread of the epidemic.

Thanks to the approach, as well as aggressive outreach to high-risk populations and widespread testing, B.C. is the only province in Canada where the rate of new infections declined since 1996.

“I have every expectation it will be lower in 2012, 2013, 2014 and thereafter,” said Montaner.

It was three years after getting on HAART that McIntyre met Daviau.

After the two failed relationships, McIntyre stayed single for nearly a decade. He wasn’t looking for a relationship when he met Daviau in an online chat room on spirituality. The pair met up when they found out they lived only five blocks away from each other.

McIntyre, an HIV/AIDS activist, was frank about his status from the start. The diagnosis did not faze Daviau, who fell in love with McIntyre’s “postively positive” attitude.

“He was full of life and joy. He has this amazing zest for life, even having to deal with a disease like this,” said Daviau, 57.

Even though McIntyre is HIV-positive and Daviau negative, transmission is not an issue because HAART has reduced McIntyre’s viral load to practically nil. The couple also practice safe sex.

On June 2, 2001, a year after dating, McIntyre and Daviau got married at St. John’s United Church. Gay marriage was not legal in Canada at the time, so last year, the couple made if official by renewing their vows.

McIntyre said living with HIV is still not easy. He has to adhere to a drug regimen twice a day. There are side effects and occasional health problems and the niggling worry he might develop resistance to the drugs.

But the ups and downs and stresses that came along with being HIV have made their relationship stronger, he said.

“Two weeks before we got married, I said to Deni ‘if we could have a year,’” said McIntyre.

“Now here we are. And I’m not ready to stop.”

DISCLOSURE

The Supreme Court of Canada recently rules HIV carriers with low viral loads who wore condoms do not have to disclose their HIV status to their sexual partners.

HIV/AIDS advocates said the decision is part of a continued criminalization of HIV, which puts the onus of disclosure solely on HIV-positive individuals or risk getting charged with aggravated assault.

“It is out of proportion,” said Dr. Julio Montaner of the B.C. Centre for Excellence in HIV/AIDS. “This comes from an era where there was a real fear that people with HIV can transmit and real ignorance for what the consequences are.”

He said Canada’s “perverse” approach to HIV exposure in the sexual context will discourage people from getting tested and adds to the burden of a disease that already carries significant stigma and discrimination.

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